Polysemy and Fatness

One of the basic premises of the kind of communication theory I study is that because of the polysemous nature of language (i.e., words not only have different dictionary meanings, they have different meanings in different contexts), the "transmission" model of communications (you think a thought and use language to transmit it to me) is not actually what happens at all. We coordinate meaning together, in interaction.

I have never had such a good example of this as in the email I got from our Ugandan director today:

I hope you are fine and you have grown fat these days. Here everything is OK. The place is carm and Edward is sick he no longer makes noise.

Way to underline the sense of waddle that accompanies January in Toronto, completely with long johns under jeans that are already a mite too tight.

Ah, Freeman. (The other day he reassured me that the children remain Big and Gay).



At least things are carm there.